What: This blog post explores examples of secular “rituals” in everyday life and why they are useful.

Where: This is a post in my blog From Precepts to Power, a blog on personal and spiritual development. This article is the sequel to an article exploring the purpose and history of religious rituals.

Why: This article was tricky to write because I had to convey complex and even foreign ideas in a straightforward manner, and do so concisely enough that a passing visitor would read the whole article.

What: This research paper explores literary similarities between the Noah, Abraham, and Moses narratives in the Hebrew Bible.

Where: This is my capstone paper for the ancient Near Eastern studies program at Brigham Young University. In spring 2020 it was published in the faculty-reviewed journal Studia Antiqua: A Student Journal for the Study of the Ancient World.

Why: This article demonstrates my ability to (1) write a clear and well-organized paper in an academic style, (2) critically analyze literary features of texts, and (3) anticipate and respond to possible objections or alternative explanations.

What: This paper lays out a method for reconciling secular and scholarly claims about the Bible’s historicity with believers’ faith-based beliefs.

Where: I presented versions of this paper at academic conferences in Brigham Young University and Creighton University in 2019.

Why: This paper demonstrates my ability to (1) create a step-by-step method for critically approaching a controversial topic, (2) present that method using words, visuals, and examples, and (3) recognize and acknowledge the validity of multiple viewpoints in a debate.

What: This essay introduces and explains my personal and professional code of ethics.

Where: I wrote this essay as part of my technical editing class at Brigham Young University.

Why: Writing this essay required me to (1) think deeply about the most common ethical concerns in the publishing world, (2) plan how I could anticipate them, and (3) present my plan in a concise and well-organized format.

What: This is a user guide for WordCruncher, a text-analysis software. Our audience was those using the software for language learning or translation projects.

Where: I worked on a team with three other technical writers to create this user guide, which was the culminating project in my substantive and technical editing class at Brigham Young University.

Why: This user guide illustrates my ability to (1) work with a team to produce a highly complex document, (2) write clear and well-organized technical instructions, and (3) format a document with screenshots, a heading hierarchy, and a hyperlinked table of contents.

After creating an initial draft of our user guide, we performed usability testing to assess how easy the user guide was to navigate, interpret, and follow. Based on that feedback, we completely restructured our user guide to consolidate topics and create a more intuitive organization.

I have my teammates’ permissions to use this guide in my portfolio.